Normally I spend the first two periods in the classroom as part of my student teaching requirements. Not that I wouldn't like to stay longer, but I do have a lot of other to-do's on my list. Friday turned out to be a bit different for this week.
Lately I have been creating and conducting the Bellwork activities and some sort of Oral Language Activity for our Spanish 2 class. These have been original creations that seek to target specific structures in the language. This week's topic is gustar sentences and food vocabulary. My CT asked me to stay for the period after lunch so I could try running those activities again with a different class. She promoted the idea because she felt I would gain a lot of insight as to how dynamics change from class to class. I've had experience with this particular period (Period 3), but only in subbing her class for a day and using her lesson plan. I readily agreed, and the class began.
Now, I don't want to go into too much detail for Period 3 at this point. I will say that they were a really fun group of kids, and I was surprised as to how on-task the majority of the students were. No side-talk, no interruptions. Everyone was engaged in the activities I had created, and for that I am fortunate. (We are just starting the "honeymoon" period for that particular class, so I'm assuming it won't be as easy in the future.) It was the next class that brought about a great learning experience for myself.
Period 4 is a really fun group of students. There is an intense amount of energy in the class, largely due to the fact that it's the last class of the school day. A lot of male energy in that class, which may contribute to the atmosphere as well. In a nutshell, those students are pretty laid back, very supportive of each other (even if the support is in the form of a sarcastic remark), and overall just a playful group of kids. After finding out that I was going to be taking over most of the class that day I was greeted with a large round of applause. I thought I was special, that my presence there was greatly appreciated. Though this is more or less true, I found out through the course of the period, that those students applaud just about everything. Haha!
In the midst of conducting my lesson, much like the previous two periods but with more finesse, I made a grave mistake. Let me set up the scene for you. I was going over a huge list of nouns, adjectives, and verbs that previous classes had helped develop. All of these words had something to do with food. I went through the nouns first, asking students to write down any words that thy felt they might use in the future when talking with someone about food. Also included were words that they may not know, or words that they absolutely knew what the word meant in Spanish. It was a fun review, and we touched upon some of the abstract/odd words that previous classes had added. (perro....really? Maybe to some that's a delicacy....) We moved through adjectives, and then on to verbs. It was at verbs that I made the slip. I was reviewing the verb odiar, which means "to hate" in Spanish. I was explaining to them my distaste for the word "hate", that it is a very strong word that should be reserved for something you really, really, really don't like. This is how it went, "I would save the word odiar for something that you really hate....for example, Odio a George Bu-." I caught myself mid-stream in the sentence. I thought, "You idiot! If there's one thing you DO NOT include in a lesson with students, it would be politics!" Luckily my CT was there to save my butt. She quickly got out of her seat and helped fill in the sentence, "He hates...uh...Curious George. Yea, that's it." Ooops!
That's not the end of it, though. Not only did I make a political slip, I also was saying "George" as a student who shares the same name was raising his hand! He reeled back, eyes wide open, mouth agape. "What?! You hate me?!" No, no, no I don't hate him, I hate....ah...now i've done it. My slip of the tongue was greeted by other students hissing. A couple of "oh snaps" were in there too. I covered myself pretty well, I think. I clarified that I did not hate that particular student, it was just bad timing. Most knew what the end of my sentence was. I offered them an alternative word detestar, which means "to detest", and we moved on with the lesson.
What did I learn in this experience? Watch your tongue! It is not my place, and I knew it at the time, to include politics as part of any discussion with high school students. Or adult students for that matter. It was a slip, and I think I handled it quite nicely. No feelings were hurt, so for that I am grateful. At least I can say I caught myself mid-sentence, and didn't wind up continuing my thoughts and making even more of an ass of myself.
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